


Istanbul

by whitachi



Category: Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo
Genre: Multi, Purple Prose, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-05-12
Packaged: 2017-12-11 14:55:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/799984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitachi/pseuds/whitachi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are more places than just Luna. Albert and Franz see the local color.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Istanbul

There were more places than just Luna. 

The sun was certainly setting when they arrived, but the city seemed reluctant to let it escape entirely. The last rays stayed caught in the silvery illusion that was the river, making it light brighter than the street lamps. Albert staggered as he stepped out of the taxi, too busy taking in the way the sky bent to capture the fleeing light, to keep the streets cast in the perpetual lavender-orange of dusk. Franz got a hand to his elbow to keep him upright, and let his raised eyebrow do the laughing for him. 

There was a bottle waiting for them in their hotel room, and Albert focused his full interest in it as Franz changed from his travelling clothes and chattered on about the sights that they'd have to be certain to take in during their stay. Albert brought the bottle with him as he sat on the bed, making the heavy brocade bedspread change from reds to yellows under his weight, and fiddled with the cuff of the sleeve of one of the shirts Franz had lain out. The label had an image of a reclining nude, and etched across her stomach were letters that Albert that could not discern; beyond her, behind the green of the glass, tiny bubbles skittered up through the liquid to crowd at the neck. Albert popped it open and laughed as the bubbles crowded out onto his fingers, and to splatter against his pantleg. 

"Oh?" Franz turned, still in the middle of knotting his tie. "What is it?" 

Albert's skin was beginning to tingle, and he toyed with the idea of sucking the liquor straight from his knuckles. "Haven't the slightest idea." He leaned back to smile at Franz, and held out the bottle to him. "Shall we?" 

"How adventurous," Franz murmured as he retrieved the two thick, squarish glasses from the table, and filled them both full of foggy liquid. They toasted to nothing, and drank deep. It tasted the same lavender-orange color as the sky outside, and Albert insisted on another glass and a half before Franz badgered him to change his clothing so they could see more than just the inside of their hotel room. 

The moon look fractured and pale through the high, arched, multi-tinted windows that followed along the rolling staircase that was to lead them out of the hotel and to what other experiences the city had to offer. Franz's hand stayed against his elbow, an anchor as he wavered a little on one step, head already faintly swimming from the drink, or perhaps a tether as he began to wander to one side or another. 

"Do you hear that?" Albert stopped on a landing before the stairs twisted round to the exit. He curled his hands around the railing and closed his eyes, catching the sound of the music that had seemed to start as soon as his foot moved off the last step, the sound that was drawing him like the scent of cooking in the air. The sound was something almost familiar, like instruments he knew being used in ways he'd never thought. 

Franz had not let go. "Mm? Ah, it's..." Albert opened his eyes to see Franz pointing, to an arched door beyond the landing, where the music came twined with thick, sweet smoke. "A lounge, I suppose. Albert..." 

But Albert was already stepping towards it, taking Franz's hand in both of his to pull him along. "Just for a moment? I want to see." Franz staggered a step, and gave him that smile, that pull at the corners of his lips and his eyes that meant he had already said yes. Franz gave him that smile more than anyone else, Albert knew. 

"We're never going to get out of the hotel at this rate, Albert," he said, his tone failing to be sincerely stern. He pressed his thumb into the center of Albert's palm and bowed his head as he followed. 

The room was hazed with smoke that made Albert's throat work and his heart race. A balding man with a long moustache who stood at least a foot taller than the both of them greeted them--or at least Albert assumed it was a greeting, for he could not understand a word that he said--and gestured towards cushioned seats with a hand longer than Albert's forearm. The man continued to speak as they sat, gesturing broadly so that the women patterned in his sleeves danced, and Franz, being the more seasoned traveler, handled the situation by nodding until the man let them be. 

Others clustered around the low tables in the room, huddled near to water pipes, murmuring in soft counterpoint with the music as they ate with long fingers and drank that same foggy liquor from square glasses. Something of a haze was settling over Albert's eyes, and he could make out no one's face. He closed his eyes for a breath, for a few hard-plucked notes of melody, and then turned himself to Franz, to find that waiting smile. Franz did not disappoint. 

The musician was an old woman with hair shot to silver that pooled against her knees and fell across the neck of her instrument. She pressed down the strings with all six fingers, changing notes and wavering the key as she plucked across the board in her lap with something sharp and pointed, something Albert would have thought a weapon rather than a tool of art. She drank tea from a solid blue cup when her song finished, and the man with long hands brought an ornate water pipe to Albert and Franz's table in the silence. He took the first long puff, exhaling blue smoke that curled out into cat smiles as it faded to the haze, and then held out the pipe to Albert. 

"Ah!" Sitting up straight was hard in that sort of seat, in this sort of place, but Albert managed. Franz, comfortably arranged with his arms stretched out beside him, languid against the wall, only laughed. The mouthpiece was cool in Albert's hands. "I... should, shouldn't I?" 

Franz crossed and uncrossed his legs, and pulled at the tie he'd spent so long fussing over. "When in Rome, as they say..." He laughed again, and his fingers brushed Albert's elbow, somehow startlingly solid. "Though this is hardly Rome..." 

Albert dipped his head in a small bow and took the mouthpiece to his lips; his tongue brushed the tip, and it tasted sweet. He tried to breath deep, as his host had, and he felt his head exploding into stars and the swirl of a river. Franz's hand was steady against his back as he coughed, and his fingers were warm as they curled around his to take the pipe from him. "When in Rome," he murmured as he tilted his head to catch Albert's eyes, lifting the corners of his mouth before taking a breath to set to coughing himself. 

You could get used to anything, Albert thought as he took another breath through the pipe and followed it with clear air, letting it swarm deep into his lungs and nearly steal his vision. He let out the smoke with a laugh as his eyes began to water, and just in the edge of his sight he could see Franz, lips parted, body still, eyes unblinking, watching him. Albert pursed his lips to blow out the rest of the smoke in a line, and handed the pipe back to Franz. "You..." 

The musician sat down her cup of tea and begain playing again in a flurry of sounds before Albert could complete his thought. She thumped bare feet onto her stage as percussion, the rings on her toes clanking and the bands around her ankles jingling as her heels thudded down on the thick, ancient wood. She played with both hands bare now, too many fingers moving across too many strings to create a melody that nearly hurt Albert's ears. Franz blew out curls of smoke that burned in Albert's eyes, and as he blinked away the tears that blurred his vision a woman seemed to melt out from the curtains. 

She moved like the smoke in her dance, her veils and scarves and skirts curling around her heedless to the direction she moved in. Franz pressed the mouthpiece of the pipe back to Albert's hand, but he could not seem to make his fingers close around it. He watched the slide of her hips, the undulations of her smooth, tea-colored belly, each movement making a ripple like crashing waves in the crimson fabric of her skirts. Franz murmured something into his ear, but he didn't hear, not when she was taking off her scarves and staring at him with eyes dark as the sea. She pulled the scarf from her hair, letting loose dark waves caught through with stars, and with a flourish at the end of her dance, tossed the garment and its blood-colored waves... to Franz. 

Franz caught the scarf easily, letting the abandoned pipe fall into Albert's lap, the mouthpiece caught against the inside of his thigh. He closed his eyes and brought it close to his face to breathe deep. Through the calming sea on the scarf, Albert could see Franz's lips pressing to the fabric. He opened his mouth to say something, to say anything in the crackling still after the end of the song, but instead Franz turned to him and held out the scarf, the corners of his mouth pulled just so. 

"Albert," he said, and no more. Albert took the scarf and took his own heavy breath of it, catching a scent of something like salt beyond the smoke that permeated every fiber in this room. He pressed his lips to the fabric and found it cool, unlike a true kiss at all. When he lifted his eyes again, the girl was no where to be seen. 

The pipe's hose had fallen to dangle over the edge of the table, brushing against Albert's knee as it slowly swung back and forth. "Where did she go?" He gripped the scarf in his hand, crushing the smooth fabric into the core of his palm. Franz leaned over to retrieve the pipe, snorting as he found himself nearly in Albert's lap. 

"I don't know." He took another small puff from the pipe before setting it down on the table, the metal mouthpiece making a soft clack. "I wasn't watching her." Albert put a hand to his brow as a needle of pain started to pierce through his head. The musician was packing her instrument away into its case, and the long-fingered man was busily involved in conversation with another patron. Franz's hand pressed to his elbow, and Albert jumped, nearly letting go of the scarf. 

"Albert?" Franz's eyes were heavy, sleepy and half-open from the smoke. Albert could still feel it in his lungs, and in his blood, making him feel vibrant and alive while at the same time desperately lethargic. "Albert, shall we go? Are you satisfied?" Franz reached out to catch the end of the scarf that trailed into Albert's lap, and laughed softly. "It will look quite fetching on you, this keepsake you've found." 

Albert pulled the scarf from Franz's grip and turned away. "Stop it! It's nothing of the sort." He unwound the fabric from his palm, unwrinkling it on his lap. "I should return it to her. It's only proper." 

"Perhaps it is her way of courting you." The water in the pipe bubbled as Franz claimed it again, closing his eyes as he drew deeply on the mouthpiece without a hint of coughing, and let it out with ease. 

"She gave it to _you_ , Franz." The scarf did not bear any mark of where either of their lips had touched. The water in the pipe continued to bubble. 

"Ah? Ah." Franz blew a ring of smoke at him, and nudged at his elbow. "I suppose you will have to ask her yourself, won't you?" Albert lifted his eyes from the nearly calmed waves of the scarf to see Franz holding out a hand to where the girl was standing not a meter away, dressed in a stormy robe and holding a tray that held another bottle of that foggy, lavender-orange tasting stuff. 

"Messieurs," she said in a soft voice in a minor chord. "Drink?" 

Albert's hands clenched in her scarf. "Ah! You--" 

"You speak French?" Franz finally relinquished the pipe, setting it on the table as he leaned forward from his previous state of supreme recline. "How delightful." 

She bowed her head when she smiled, causing her hair to fall across her bared shoulder. "Only a little." Albert counted out the constellations in her hair as she placed the tray on the table, and dropped to her knees in a soft rustle of silks. She looked up at him, and Albert thought he could find stars in her eyes as well if he looked hard enough. Her dark mouth spread into a smile. "Please let me?" 

This time, Albert's spine was not quite so agreeable to sitting directly upright; instead, he focused his energy on flushing a red to match her scarf. Franz, to his credit, was only a shade of pink, but he did not have a beauty kneeling before him. "Let, let you?" 

She reached over to the table, her sleeves sliding back to show bangles and bracelets on her slender wrists. She poured a glass full of fog, and held it up to Albert. "Let me?" 

Albert tried not to let out his sigh of relief too obviously, and took the glass from her. Her fingertips were soft and warm as they brushed his. "Yes. Yes, thank you." He gulped down the drink too quickly, making it burn along his insides, deep down into his stomach as he watched her stand and move to kneel before Franz, offering him the same. When he had finished, Franz moved to make a space between them, and gestured for her to sit. She looked as though she wished to object, but lacked the words, so she bowed her head to Franz and arranged herself in a crush of fabrics between them. She filled two more glasses, and as she bent forward, the thunderclouds of her robes parted to show long, bare legs. 

He met Franz's eyes as they once more toasted to nothing, just to see him telling him _yes_. 

She did not make for much of a conversationalist, possessing little more than a few dozen words in French, and most of those simple pleasantries. This made her no less of a pleasant evening's companion though, as each time one of them made her smile, made that radiant light come forth from her, she would pour once more, and another silent toast would pass between them. She said her name once or twice, but it seemed a note tuned for Albert not to hear, and even less so for him to speak. In moments when he contemplated the ringlets of starry hair that curled on her honeyed shoulder, Albert was not certain he could speak even his own name. 

"Ah, it's empty." Franz shook the bottle a little, revealing no tell-tale slosh. He set it back against the table with a sigh and smiled wearily, eyes barely open, at Albert. "Perhaps we should retire?" 

Traitor, Albert thought to call him, coward, and a dozen other cruel things, and Franz must have seen this played on his face, for he reached across, his arm looping around the small of her back to rest at the Albert's elbow. 

"We have that other bottle in our room, remember?" He withdrew his hand as quietly and softly as he had made the connection, and kept his smile even. 

"To the room, messieurs?" She held out one small hand to Franz, and he caught it in hers without hesitation. "Let me," she whispered as she turned her smile and offered the other hand to Albert. 

"Please," he found himself murmuring before he could even think about how hot her hand was in his own. 

She seemed to know where their room was far better than they at that moment, so she lead them, hand in hand in hand, up the stairs. Albert's head was swimming, and he felt sure he had left his legs in the lounge, but then there they were, at the door to their suite, and her with their key in her lovely hands. 

"Let..." He took the key from her, and fumbled with it in the lock. "Let me." He finally slid it home and turned it with a satisfying click, then staggered in as his weight pressed the door open too quickly. "We have, we have more..." Franz's clothes still covered the bed, and he wanted to dive to hide them, to make everything look perfect. Franz closed the door behind him and locked it, and smiled at him over her bare shoulder. 

"I think we've had enough." Franz's hand was shockingly pale against her skin as his fingers brushed her collarbone, making a perfect shade of dusk spread over her cheeks. "Don't you? Albert." 

Her hand curled up to rest over Franz's, while the other stretched out to him, beckoning him towards this too-beautiful creature already waiting in his friend's arms. "Let me. Albert," she whispered, and the second call of his name formed the chord to make his will melt away, and he was there before her, looking up into the assurance of Franz's eyes as his numb hands pulled loose the knot on her robe. 

Yes, they said, and then her mouth was hot on his. She tasted nothing like the liquor, nothing like the smoke, but sweet like those last lines of sunset so many hours ago. Albert could feel her pressed closed to him, her skin feverish and bare faint inches from him, and it would be so _easy_ to look, to take her in as she let her arms drop, the robe and its thunderclouds pooling around their feet. He opened his eyes to see Franz just before him, face pressed into her hair, lips parted as his heavy breaths sent ripples through the stars. He was watching Albert, even as his hand moved around her body to press palm to her stomach, knuckles brushing the still-crisp fabric of Albert's shirt. 

Albert made a sound when the girl broke away from the kiss, turning her head away to welcome Franz's lips upon her throat, and he was uncertain that he'd ever been brought to make a noise like that before. It was a _whimper_ , soft and needy, something not far from the cry a still-hungry child being pulled from its mother's breast might make. Albert thought to be embarrassed, but then her hand was clutching at his lapel and she was making her own sounds, sighs of dusk birdsong as Franz traced her perfect ear with tongue redder than Albert ever would have thought it. He made the sound again and Franz whispered something to her, a few short words that held Albert's name. 

She laughed, soft and breathless, and Albert felt his heart stop a moment before she lifted her dark eyes to his and smiled. Franz was withdrawing, his hand turning as it pulled away from where he held her and brushing along Albert's side, and even that incidental touch made his skin prickle and shiver. "Let me," the girl murmured once more before her hands slid beneath his jacket, pulled at his tie, plucked at his buttons to leave him half-exposed and breathing too hard. 

"She's beautiful. Albert." Franz had done the work himself; beyond the curve of the girl's shoulder Albert could see Franz's jacket crumpled near his ankles, his tie slipping through his fingers to join it, and the flush that spread far further than his cheeks. "Look at her." He stepped close to her again, pale hand once more on her throat to draw away her hair. Franz was not looking at her. "Albert, look." 

He held his breath and took half a step back, and felt like he was seeing an eclipse. It nearly hurt his eyes to see her lain bare, and his eyes shifted to her borders to make it easier. Franz outlined her, haloing her shadows in pale, backing her curves with angles, and when he touched her, a brush of his lips at the back of her neck, she sighed and shivered to make Albert imagine more waves beneath her skin than had been in those red skirts. Franz's eyes kept smiling as he watched him watching her. 

He took her in in the smallest of doses, focusing here on the tension in the muscles of her arms as she reached behind her to link her hand behind Franz's neck, or watching there at the way her chest expanded and breasts swelled with her uneven breaths. Her nipples were sugar-dark, and Albert found himself making that child's whimper again as Franz's hands came to cover them. He stroked her, he teased her until her strings were taut enough to fear breaking, but she only trembled within his hold and made soft dove-sounds. 

Albert's lungs were beginning to ache, and he couldn't quite place why. "Albert," Franz said, and the sound of his name allowed him to breathe out again. "She needs to be kissed." He laughed, low and soft into the stars of her hair, and Albert marveled for a moment at how he could be so _relaxed_. But her, her mouth was open as she leaned her head back against Franz's cheek, against his shoulder, and as little as he often liked to admit it, Franz could have a habit of being right. He closed that space in a step of a mile and kissed her, setting to make it so he could remember her taste when he was gray and dwelling all in memories. As he thread his hands into the thickness of her hair, the back of his hand came to rest against Franz's cheek just where he was most flushed, and for a moment he lost track of which pulse was his. 

She shifted her weight, moving her center from one trembling leg to the other, and pressed herself close to Albert. As one of her arms settled against his shoulders, he could feel the heat of her stomach pressing to his, and the backs of Franz's far cooler hands as he continued to play with her, thumbing at her nipples or letting a hand slide down to cup at her hip. When she broke from Albert's kiss again, it was to hiss out words that he couldn't understand as Franz performed some cleverness with his fingers that translated only to a brush of knuckles against Albert's ribcage. Her body rippled and stiffened between them, and for just long enough to make Albert bite hard into his tongue, she stayed pressed to him just where he wanted her most, her softness to where he'd grown _so_ hard. 

"P-please," she murmured to Franz, and the word sounded thick in her mouth, as though she were still busied with Albert's kiss. "I... sit, please?" Her knees were trembling, and Albert felt not far from that himself. Franz kept his hands around her as he stepped back to find a chair, with its bowing back meant for an afternoon's recline, and when he sat, he simply arranged her atop his lap. She leaned back against his chest and settled her head on his shoulder once more, and with only a wordless murmur of encouragement from Franz, she spread out her legs, twining them with Franz's. Franz looked at Albert with that smile to tell him that this was a gift for _him_. 

Despite this, Albert remained still and only watching as Franz moved both of his hands along the insides of her thighs. Her skin had to feel like silk, or perhaps something even finer, with the way Franz sighed and murmured into her throat. She moaned a note that made Albert's knees quiver, and when Franz lifted his mouth from her throat, there was a blood-dark mark in the shape of his kiss upon her skin. Albert fell to his knees before her without thinking, just short from falling prostrate before her, and placed one hand low on her stomach, just above starless dark curls. Here there was no smell of smoke, only _her_ thick and heady scent that swallowed Albert like an ocean and made him forget how to think. 

Franz's hand, cool atop his own, brought Albert from his reverie, and he lifted his eyes to see his friend breathing through kiss-darkened lips and watching him through the veil of his pale lashes. He only spoke Albert's name, soft and nearly choked, and brought his hand up to cup the soft curve of the girl's breast. Franz's hand was soft, he noticed as he spread out his fingers over the pliant warmth of her breast, and something in the sight of him touching him touching her made Albert cry out and press forward, finding his ear to her heart, his cheek to the more than silk of her skin, and his mouth at her nipple as easy as nature. 

She tasted as her kiss, like light against Albert's tongue, and his hesitation faded as he felt her stiffen and swell against his lips. She made another low sound, and Albert ached knowing it was _his_. He took her in both hands, forgetting his gentleness for only a moment as he squeezed her until she whimpered once more and he could not help but echo. As he trailed kisses across her chest, moving in the pace of her racing heartbeat, he felt Franz's hand brush across his stomach for only a second before she _truly_ cried out, squirming in Franz's lap enough to nearly push Albert away. 

Her back formed a near perfect bow as she arched against Franz's hand, finding a curve of form that her earlier dance had only begun to suggest. Albert's hands rested against her thighs as he held a breath her against his tongue before taking it in deeper. The fog of the smoke seemed to be fading from his blood, but only to replaced with the intoxication of needing her. She whimpered faintly, and Albert realized he was gripping her too tightly, her skin paling under the points of his fingers. When he drew back, she whimpered once more, but in a crescendo that climaxed in Franz's name as his fingers found far finer points of pressure, sliding through the secrets of her skin. Franz's pale fingers curled lower to disappear within her, and Albert bit the inside of his lip in the fearful envy of it. 

"Albert." Albert looked up to find Franz flushed and breathing hard, yet with eyes fixed only on him, as though there was no girl writhing on his lap and quivering like water-ripples at his every touch. "She needs more." 

"She..." He barely voiced the word, not much more than a sigh over his lips, but Franz's parted, panting lips curved in the suggestion of a smile. He swallowed his cowardice and took hold of his friend's wrist, fingers pressing too tightly into pale skin that was far cooler than hers, and drew his fingers from her with a sound that reminded him of the lapping of waves. 

He needed, in this moment, something solid, something to make him brave, so he chose the steady, quick pace of Franz's pulse beneath his cool, pale wrist, and his eyes, ever fixed on Albert, always watching what progress he could make. The girl shivered a whimper at the absence of touch, and Albert held on to that vision of Franz's clear, steady blue eyes as he leaned in to close his mouth over his friend's fingers. 

Albert tasted nothing of lavender-orange, nothing of the smoke, nothing of the ocean of her scent, only something heavy on his tongue that filled his senses, that he knew he needed more of, and when he had lapped that away, all that was left was the salt and tobacco-tingle of Franz's skin. He drew away, until just Franz's fingers rested against his lips, and took another glance up; those steadying blue eyes were closed now, Franz's face turned into the constellations of the girl's hair. He barely breathed a sound against her through, but Albert could hear it as the shape of his name. 

Franz's fingers drew from his mouth, trailing embarrassingly wet across his cheek as they moved to clench in his hair, making a soft crushing sound in Albert's ear as he was drawn deep to the girl. Franz's fingers soothed him, and his need guided him as his mouth sought her out. In the fleeting, blushing moments he had thought of this before, Albert had imagined it would be something like a kiss; but for the wet and the warmth, it was hardly like that most basic of acts. His mouth wandered lost in the petals of her skin; each kiss against her darkness made him feel wild, and desperate to taste her at her deepest. Where a kiss would end, she continued, and Albert shook from it even as she sighed and undulated around him. 

When her trembling fingertips came to brush against his cheek, Albert startled, for so different were they from the steady grasp of Franz's hand wound in his hair, her lacquered fingernails cool against his skin. She drew him back from where he drank her with a reedy whimper, and once more Albert looked past her gasping lips and flushed cheeks to Franz, ever an actor begging for his next cue. Franz's eyes were yet still closed, and his hand rested still against the swell of her breast, his earlier teasings all stopped. "Franz..." Albert murmured half against the girl's sweat-dampened thigh, and his friend drew in a breath as though shocked. 

"Take her," Franz whispered, allowing his eyes to open only enough to show a sliver of blue; he kept them from Albert, fixing his gaze into the girl's throat as he drew her hair back to kiss at her ear. "Yes? Yes." She nodded as her hips began to writhe again atop Franz's lap, bringing her close enough that Albert could only think for a moment of having another intoxicating taste. "Albert." Franz's voice drew him from temptation, and he found his eyes again as Franz spoke in a voice clouded thick. "Take her, Albert. She is yours." He pulled at his hair, drawing Albert upward, and then left off from his touch completely with one last brush of his fingers against Albert's cheek. 

Albert dared not disobey, not with Franz's eyes closed, and the girl helping him rise past his knees again. Franz hid his face in the heaviness of her curls as her hands played clever again at Albert's belt, unwrapping him and drawing his aching flesh forth to shockingly cool air. 'Jealousy' was the word that echoed unspoken in his ears. His final thought before she grasped at his hips and pulled him toward her was that the next they met a beautiful girl, he would have to repay Franz this grand favor. Then he was within her, subsumed in her sweetly unbearable heat and thinking only of the waves he felt rippling deep within her, and the curl of her ankles around his thighs. 

He staggered forward against her, awkward in his position and unsteady beneath the knees, but Franz was there to catch them both, solid beneath their quaking. She sang in gasps and whimpers as she rolled beneath him, twining her arms around his back to alight his skin with shivers where her fingernails blessed him. Albert sought to bury himself inside of her, to lose himself entirely, and in these efforts, found himself bent over her until his lips were pressed to her shoulder, and his burning forehead against Franz's throat. He lost track of his own pulse when caught so close to hers, and so close to his. He lifted his head to find his eyes covered by the cornsilk of Franz's hair, and he felt himself cry out. 

Somewhere in the muddle of skin, and heat, and heartbeats, Albert felt Franz's mouth move from her throat to his. Franz left one soft kiss on his skin with his lips, and then another, with a whisper of Albert's name. It was permission, it was a blessing, and Albert was lost. It was a blissful sort of dying. 

In the morning, he awoke with a mouthful of one of Franz's sleeves, from where he had fallen asleep stretched across half of his friend's wardrobe. Albert did not remember when exactly they had made it to the bed, but he had trouble remembering much, with the lavender-orange of daylight suddenly seeming so much harsher as it poured through their windows. 

Franz lay at the other side of the bed, back toward him showing the now-muted colors of his shirt. The girl, it seemed, was no where to be found, not even the ghost of her scent or a scarf left to remember her by. Albert pulled his own clothes back to a vestige of decency and rose from bed; he hoped his groan was not loud enough to wake Franz. He found the bottle they'd been into undisturbed, mostly full and still bubbling, the nude woman ever smiling at him from its label. He brought his own sleeve to his nose and could not even remember what the smoke had been like. Perhaps it had been nothing but a dream, fueled on mad Turkish liquor. 

"I feel ill," he murmured into his sleeve. 

"Call down for breakfast and close the blinds, already," Franz said, not stirring from where he lay, face hidden against his pillow. "If we're lucky we'll get ourselves in order and not waste _another_ day." 

Albert watched Franz for a while, waiting for his friend to stir further. He did not, and Albert did as he was asked. 


End file.
